Just a Good Laugh: 2014

Life as a mom is rewarding and challenging and lately it has been humbling. Baby man is four now and let's be honest, he never stops talking. He talks about robots, dinosaurs, dragons and his "shows." Yep, just like my grandma would talk about her "shows" so does my son. Our lives took a new turn on the road of life this summer as we relocated to Ohio and bought a house. At the age of four he has taken it all in stride and is eager to see the silver lining in any cloud. Here is a short example that stood out to me this week.

Our summer is coming to close which means we'll all be heading back to school in a week or so. Baby Man and I decided to make biscuits (a Saturday morning tradition). He pours the Jiffy mix and water into the bowl and I stir it and pat it out on the counter then he cuts out the biscuits. I started thinking about a bacon egg and cheese biscuit and suggested bacon and eggs to go with our treat.
"That sounds good. I like bacon and eggs." he said in his child voice. So I commence with visions of a perfect family breakfast in mind. Well, needless to say I burnt the bacon. The real bacon chef is Love of My Life; somehow he manages to make it perfect every time. More confusing is how I manage to burn the middle of the bacon while the edges are still soft. Before you say anything, it was NOT too hot... my gas range was on LOW. Anyway, I'm sure I did something just as silly but I was disappointed that the bacon wasn't perfect and thus my perfect breakfast wasn't perfect either.

As we gathered at the table with nice fluffy biscuits (thanks to Jiffy), yummy butter eggs and slightly burnt bacon I apologize for the burn bacon for the tenth time and Baby Man looks up and says in a very solemn but hopeful tone, "Thats ok Mommy. I like the bacon this way. It is still yummy." and he takes and bite and gobbles it down. I was touched by his effort to comfort me about the burnt bacon because I'll admit I let it get to me. Then he said, "Mommy I love you and this bacon is good. Don't worry." It was almost too much. I got up and hugged him and told him what sweet boy he was and how much I loved him.

This morning Baby Man said he wanted a cherry pop tart and I fished the last one out of the box. I made sure I told him it was the last one so he wouldn't be upset tomorrow when there wasn't another one. "Thats ok Mommy, can we get more at the store?" his reply was, as always, good natured with a hopeful tone. "Sure" I replied, "Next time we are at the store we'll buy some more." I proceeded to put the poptart in the toaster oven and burnt it having forgotten about it.

Baby Man Discovers Darts Stick to Ceiling.

My heart sank as I said "Oh no buddy, I'm so sorry I burnt your poptart." He quickly put up a hand in the stop position, "Thats ok mommy, I will eat it. I like it that way." I responded to his kind words, "Oh buddy I don't know if you'll like it but you can still eat the middle, only the edges are burnt." I put it on his plate and he said, "It's ok mommy, I will eat it." He did eat several bites of the dark brown crust before he said, "Mommy, I don't really like the brown part." I quickly said "Its ok, you don't have to eat it. I'm sorry I burnt it." Smiling he said again, "Its ok mommy, I love you."

I'm so blessed to have such a sweet young man. He is always upbeat and not even burnt bacon or burnt cherry poptart can dampen his mood. I need to take a page from his book and not let the little things get me down or ruin my mood.

Last summer Love of My Life and I celebrated our 11th anniversary with a much needed vacation without our three year old, Little Man (formerly Baby Man). It is a sweet and sometimes funny story with a bunch of middle age boring in between. I'll stick to the funny part since you are looking for a good laugh and add in the sweet to brag on Love of My Life.

After a really stressful year at as a public school I was looking forward to the summer. Love of My Life found great airfare to Seattle from our warm south central US home and I was looking forward to an outdoor adventure of cool forest days and hot urban city nights. The botanist in me was excited about going to Olympic National Park and cool forest days. The still young, married to Love of My Life self was looking forward to hot urban nights. We decided not to book any hotels and just figure it out as we went. I was nervous and Love of My Life conceded that I could book two rooms in advance, the day we landed and the night before we departed at 6:00 am. The planner in me was nervous but he assured me that he had a great new app that would allow us to save a ton of money if we booked rooms at noon the day of the stay. I was dubious but went along because as much as I hate to admit it, he is almost always right about that stuff.

After scouring the internet I found there was really only one or two places to stay near Olympic National Park that were not very very cheap or very expensive. (Yes! I trusted Love of My Life, but maybe not the app so much.) The Bed and Breakfast scene was filling up pretty quick so I also talked him into a three night stay and promptly booked a room in a pretty two story, white house with a wrap around porch.

We dropped off Little Man with his grandparents and didn't look back as we flew to Seattle. The first few days of our trip were absolutely lovely, due mostly to the Love of My Life and how he can find the best food in any city. We walked, talked and slept in late. Any parent will concede that most days, walking, talking and sleeping in late are nearly impossible with a three-year-old. The peace and quiet that surrounded us as we drove from Seattle to Vancouver was priceless (with the exception of whatever new techno Love of My Life had found.)

Love of My Life is a genius and his app did find us great deals on some amazing and some ok places to sleep. We went from staying in China Town to a questionable "historic" hotel at the city center to a luxury hotel with a garden tub and amazing view. The historic hotel was complete with windows that needed to be opened to give respite from the "historic" smell. I thought how nice it must be to not need screens in Vancouver and lightly fingered the ivy growing up the side of the building. Laying in bed I thought it was kind of romantic to see the sheer curtains flowing in the breeze and drifted off into a peaceful sleep. Sometime during the night Love of My Life nudged me awake and pointed to the romantic sheer curtains. Outside our two story window was a large roundish furry shape silhouetted against the city lights. It took me awhile to process the very large shape, larger than any fat cat I'd seen... "What is that!" I hissed at him. I'll admit I was scared and a bit mad that he'd woken me up when I could have slept peacefully through the large animal attack; he was sleeping closer to the window anyway. "I think it's a raccoon," he whispered back. "Do something!" I hissed again. He chuckled and rolled over again saying, "I'm not getting up." I relaxed as the raccoon scampered away but I lay there wondering if it would come back to the sound of Love of My Life snoring. Believe me when I say my soak in the luxury tub and bed the next night were not wasted.

Despite my short six hour stent as a zombie (on Dramamine) when taking the ferry to Victoria and then down to Port Angeles I enjoyed the views of the bay and Pacific Ocean which I'd never seen. I'd also never been on a ferry and vow to avoid it at all costs in the future due to the continual rocking I felt for half a day afterward. Finally we arrived in Olympic National Park from Port Angeles and my heart soared with the views and short hikes we did before traveling west to our B&B.

The drive to the B&B seemed to take forever despite the breathtaking views. Once the pretty views gave way to typical boring forest I contented myself with reading mile markers and street signs of which there were few. One in particular caught my eye and caused me to mentally pause and we sped past. "La Push Beach - 12 miles." Before I'd completely directed my attention back to the road I swore we breezed by a sign that said "Treaty Line - No Vampires" What? I couldn't have read that right. I'll admit I like Vampire Diaries and read all kinds of vampire and werewolf trash. Surely I was so tired and recovering from Dramamine that I'd imagined it.

As the sun set we drove into a small town with only several strip malls, two shabby hotels, several hometown restaurants and a small grocery store. We pulled into the B&B and piled out after a long day in the Park and even longer drive. The wide porch was welcoming and there was a small hand-written sign that said "Cullen House." I was a bit confused as I was certain the owner's name was Miller. Shrugging it off we checked in and moved our bags to the room. Next to the TV was a stack of DVDs which I thought was nice but who'd want to sit in a room when you were next to Olympic National Park? Love of My Life started looking through the videos and commented on what a great place I picked out. My response was to look more closely at the videos. It was the complete set of Twilight movies - all five or six of them. Having read them years ago (I did mention I like vampire books) I was interested and secretly planned to pop one in later, I'd only wasted my money on the first movie despite having wasted money on all the books.

Something was swimming around in my brain that I was sure I should have caught onto by now. The nagging feeling followed me out the door and past the "Cullen House" plaque. I just knew there was something I was missing. I was deep in thought as Love of My Life drove us through town heading to the only bar in town which supposedly had great burgers. As we drove through the town I couldn't help but notice how many of the shops looked recently abandoned. Love of My Life commented on how empty the town felt too. We slowed to a stop and I looked in the window of a hopping corner drug store. There hung a black shirt that said "Team Edward" next to a dark brown shirt that said "Team Jacob." The shop next door became visible as we turned the corner. It's abandoned window sported one dusty hand written sign that said "Twilight Tours." Whatever was swimming around on on the edge of my brain pool but refused to be caught. My eyebrows furrowed as we continued down the street. As we reached the edge of town a cheery wooden sign said "Now Leaving Forks, Come back soon!" It was the lure that pulled the idea from my brain pool and everything clicked!

I'd booked a room in the small town of Forks Washington, completely forgetting that the Twilight series books made it famous! Sometimes I can be really dense....

We had great burgers and fries and did indeed watch the Twilight movies cozied up with Love of My Life in Forks Washington. To be fair to him, he slept through most of them and I've left out his favorite parts of our trip... they were lovely and special but would be quite boring for you.